Checklist for leadership

Welcome to the Annual Design News Engineering Awards Issue. Here, you'll read about the breakthrough engineering work of 12 individuals, including the person voted by readers as Engineer of the Year, and three engineering teams.

What traits make them winners? They all have in-depth technical knowledge, and they're all tenacious, willing to walk through any obstacle, technical or managerial, to achieve their objectives. But what else?

Penn State Engineering Professor John Brighton, one of the early mentors of our Engineer of the Year, Gerson Rosenberg, says engineering leaders have to be able to step up, not hang back, when it comes to addressing technical issues. "They have to be in the forefront and in the middle of the discussion," he says. That's one of the traits he noticed in Rosenburg when the latter was just a student.

Dennis Boyle, a top team manager at engineering consulting firm IDEO, says leaders are good communicators with a fire to create and an ability to find several solutions to a problem. "They can think about details as well as strategy," he says, "and they're comfortable in the shop, in vendors' offices, and in front of groups."

Based on these comments and our own observations, we developed a checklist of leadership traits in engineering. Check off those traits that apply to you or those who work for you:

Seeks constantly to increase knowledge in his/her own area and other technical areas

Enthusiastically works outside his/her specialty when necessary

Communicates with and motivates other team members

Offers suggestions on designs—and seeks suggestions too

Sticks with a problem, whether technical, administrative, or financial, until a solution is found, then moves on

Disagrees with management when necessary, yet remains a team player

Add your own criteria to this list. Anyone who can check off all boxes is an engineering leader-in-waiting, and a potential winner of a Design News Excellence in Design Award.

It won't be too much longer and hardware design, as we used to know it, will be remembered alongside the slide rule and the Karnaugh map. You will need to move beyond those familiar bits and bytes into the new world of software centric design.

People who want to take advantage of solar energy in their homes no longer need to install a bolt-on solar-panel system atop their houses -- they can integrate solar-energy-harvesting shingles directing into an existing or new roof instead.

Kaspersky Labs indicated at its February meeting that cyber attacks are far more sophisticated than previous thought. It turns out even air-gapping (disconnecting computers from the Internet to protect against cyber intrusion) isn’t a foolproof way to avoid getting hacked. And Kaspersky implied the NSA is the smartest attacker.

Focus on Fundamentals consists of 45-minute on-line classes that cover a host of technologies. You learn without leaving the comfort of your desk. All classes are taught by subject-matter experts and all are archived. So if you can't attend live, attend at your convenience.